J-S43012-15

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

TYRONE RICHARDSON,

Appellant No. 2719 EDA 2014

Appeal from the PCRA Order of August 12, 2014

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County

Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0412141-1984

BEFORE: GANTMAN, P.J., PANELLA AND OLSON, JJ.

JUDGMENT ORDER PER CURIAM: FILED JULY 30, 2015

Appellant, Tyrone Richardson, appeals pro se from the order entered 

on August 12, 2014 dismissing his first petition filed pursuant to the PostConviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. We vacate and 

remand.

The relevant procedural history of this case is as follows. On August 1, 

1984, Appellant was found guilty of, inter alia, first-degree murder.1 On 

April 19, 1985, he was sentenced to an aggregate term of life imprisonment 

without the possibility of parole. This Court affirmed Appellant’s judgment of 

sentence. Commonwealth v. Richardson, 1199 Philadelphia 1985 (Pa. 

Super. June 23, 1987) (per curiam) (unpublished memorandum). Appellant 

did not seek allocatur. 

 

1 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2502(a) (Purdon’s 1983). 
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On August 22, 2012, Appellant filed a pro se PCRA petition. This was 

his first petition filed under either the PCRA or its predecessor, the PostConviction Hearing Act.2

 The PCRA court did not appoint counsel. On April 

14, 2014, the PCRA court issued notice of its intent to dismiss the petition 

without an evidentiary hearing. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 907. On August 12, 

2014, the PCRA court dismissed the petition. This timely appeal followed.3

The PCRA court erred when it failed to appoint counsel to represent 

Appellant on his first PCRA petition. “[I]t is undisputed that first time PCRA 

petitioners have a rule-based right to counsel.” Commonwealth v. 

Figueroa, 29 A.3d 1177, 1180 n.6 (Pa. Super. 2011). This right to counsel 

“exists throughout the post-conviction proceedings, including any appeal 

from [the] disposition of the petition for post-conviction relief.” 

Commonwealth v. Quail, 729 A.2d 571, 573 (Pa. Super. 1999) (internal 

citations and quotation marks omitted); see also Pa.R.Crim.P. 904(C). 

Here, the PCRA court simply failed to appoint counsel to represent Appellant 

during the underlying proceedings. This constitutes clear error, as it forced 

 

2 The PCRA court acknowledged that “[a]fter reviewing the record in this 

case, [it was] unable to verify whether [Appellant] filed a previous postconviction relief petition under either the Post-Conviction Hearing Act [] or 

PCRA at any point in the last [27] years.” PCRA Court Opinion, 12/19/14, at 

1 n.1. We have carefully reviewed the certified record and have likewise 

found no evidence of a prior post-conviction relief petition. 

3 The PCRA court did not order Appellant to file a concise statement of errors 

complained of on appeal pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate 

Procedure 1925(b). Nonetheless, on December 19, 2014, the PCRA court 

issued an opinion explaining its rationale for dismissing the petition. 
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Appellant to litigate the entirety of his first PCRA petition without the aid of 

an attorney.4

Moreover, although Appellant did not claim that the PCRA court erred 

in failing to appoint counsel, our Supreme Court explained that “[t]he denial 

of PCRA relief cannot stand unless the petitioner was afforded the assistance 

of counsel.” Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 720 A.2d 693, 699 (Pa. 1998). 

Thus, we have held that “where an indigent, first-time PCRA petitioner was 

denied his right to counsel – or failed to properly waive that right – this 

Court is required to raise this error sua sponte and remand for the PCRA 

court to correct that mistake.” Commonwealth v. Stossel, 17 A.3d 1286, 

1290 (Pa. Super. 2011).

In the case at bar, Appellant was deprived of his rule-based right to 

have appointed counsel litigate his first PCRA petition. As such, we vacate 

the order dismissing Appellant’s PCRA petition and remand this case to the 

PCRA court with instructions to appoint counsel. 

Order vacated. Case remanded. Jurisdiction relinquished. 

 

4 This Court has held that “even where a PCRA petition appears untimely, an 

indigent petitioner is entitled to counsel in order that a determination may 

be made as to whether any of the exceptions to the time limitation of [42 

Pa.C.S.A. §] 9545(b) apply to the circumstances surrounding his [case].” 

Commonwealth v. Ferguson, 722 A.2d 177, 179 (Pa. Super. 1998).
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Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 7/30/2015